Of course it hung together. Somebody in the gang had to have exact knowledge of the layout of the gem-vault, which Evins, and very few others, could provide. The arrangement of the ventilation-ducts wasn’t classified top-secret; anybody in Evins’s position could have gotten that. They had to have a place to keep the Fuzzies, big enough to build a replica of the gem vault and of the ventilation system. Well, there were all those vacant factories and warehouses out in the district everybody called Mortgageville. The ones Hugo Ingermann had been acquiring title to, with Thaxter as dummy buyer. How Herckerd and Novaes had been roped in wasn’t immediately important; catch them and question them and that would emerge. Ten to one, Rose Thaxter, Mrs. Conrad Evins, was the connecting link and mainspring.

The Fuzzies in Steefer’s office were having a reunion. Khadra and Mallin and Sandra were trying to get them to look at the communication screen. He turned to Steefer.

“Get some men to Conrad Evins’s place; make a thorough search, for anything that might look like evidence of anything.”

“They won’t be there.”

“No. They’ll be in one of those buildings over in Mortgageville, and we don’t know which one. I’m going to call Ian Ferguson.”

He told Ferguson quickly what he suspected. The Constabulary commandant nodded.

“Reasonable,” he agreed. “I’ll call the city police for help; we’ll close the place off so nobody can get in or out and then we’ll start making a search. It’s only about two thousand square miles, and there are only about three hundred buildings on it,” he added. “I think I’ll call Casagra, too, and see how many Marines he can give me.”

“Well, take your time searching; just make sure anybody who’s there now stays there. We’ll give you what help we can as soon as we can.”

He looked up at the screen from Steefer’s office. Khadra had called Evins’s home, now, and he could hear Evins’s recorded voice stating that he wouldn’t be home before midnight. The Fuzzies evidently recognized him. It was also evident that they didn’t like him.

“And put out a general alert to pick up Evins, Mrs. Evins, and Leo Thaxter, and I don’t think you need to worry about how much noise you make doing it.”

“And Ivan Bowlby, and Raul Laporte, and Spike Heenan,” Ferguson added. “And any or all of their hoods.” He thought for a moment. “And Hugo Ingermann. We may finally have grounds for interrogating him as a suspect. I’ll call Gus Brannhard, too.”

“And Leslie Coombes; he’ll be a help.”

“All right, everybody!” Steefer was calling out with his loudspeaker. “We have all the Fuzzies out; now let’s get the show started!” Then he rose and went around the desk.

Khadra was on the communication screen from the Chief’s desk:

“They made that fellow Evins, all right. He was one of the gang. Who is he?”

“Well, he used to be the Company’s chief gem-buyer, up to fifteen minutes ago, but now he has been discharged, without notice, severance pay or recommendation.” He thought for a moment. “Captain, are those Fuzzies’ feet dirty?” he asked.

“Huh?” Khadra stared at him for an instant, then nodded. “Yes, they are; gray-brown dust. Same kind of dust on their fur.”

“Uhuh; that’s good.” He rose and went to the big table and the solidigraph, where Steefer was already talking to a dozen or so men. He saw Niles Guerrin, the ventilation engineer, and pulled him aside.

“Niles, the insides of those ducts are dusty?” he asked.

“The ones that carry stale air to the reconditioners,” Guerrin replied. “Dust from the air in the rooms…”

“They’re the ones we’re interested in. Now, these snoopers, robo-inspectors; could they pick up tracks the Fuzzies make, or traces where they’ve brushed against the sides of the ducts?”

“Yes, sure. They have a full optical reception and transmission system for visible light and infra-red light, and controllable magnifying vision…”

“How soon can you get them started, from the gem-vault and from the captain’s office in detective headquarters?”

“Right away; we’ve set up screens and controls for them in here; did that right at the start.”

“Good.” He raised his voice. “Chief! Captain Hurtado, Lieutenant Mortlake; do-bizzo. We’re going to fill the ventilation system with snoopers, now.”

PHIL NOVAES LOOKED at his watch. It was still 0130, the damned thing must have stopped, and he was sure he’d wound it. Holding his wrist to catch the dim light from above he squinted at the second-hand. It was still making its slow circuit around the dial. It must have been only a few seconds since he had looked at it last.

“Herk, let’s get the hell out of here,” he urged. “They aren’t coming out at all. It’s been an hour since the last two went in.”

“Thirty-five minutes,” Herckerd said.

“Well, it’s been over an hour since the other three went in. Something’s gone wrong; we’ll wait here till hell freezes over…”

“We’ll wait here a little longer, Phil. We still have fifty million in sunstones to wait for, and we want to get those Fuzzies and shut them up for good.”

“We have better than fifty million already. All we’ll get’ll be a hole in the head if we stay around here any longer. I know what’s happened, those Fuzzies have gone out some other way; they’re running around loose, packing sunstones…”

“Be quiet, Phil.” Herckerd reached to his shirt pocket to turn on his hearing aid and put his head to the ventilation duct opening. “I hear something in there.” He snapped off the hearing aid, listened, and snapped it on again. “It’s ultrasonic, whatever it is. Probably vibration in the walls of the duct. Now just take it easy, Phil. Nobody knows there’s anything happening at all. Grego’s the only man in Company House that can open that vault, and he won’t open it for a couple of weeks, at least. All the stones from Evins’s office were put away yesterday. It’ll take that long before anybody knows they’re gone.”

“Suppose those Fuzzies got out somewhere else. My God, they could have come out right in the police area.” That could have happened; he wished he hadn’t thought of it, but now that he had, he was sure that was what had happened. “If they did, everybody in the building’s looking for us.”

Herckerd wasn’t listening to him. He’d turned off his hearing aid, and was squatting by the intake port, peeling the wrapper from a chewing-gum stick and putting the wrapper carefully in his pocket. Another piece of foolishness; no reason at all why they couldn’t smoke here. He listened with his hearing aid again. The noise, whatever it was, was louder.

“There’s something in there.” He pulled the goggles down from his cap and took out his infrared flashlight.

“Don’t do that,” Herckerd said sharply.

He disregarded the warning and turned the invisible light into the duct. There was something moving forward toward the opening; it wasn’t a Fuzzy. It was a bulbous-nosed metallic thing, floating slowly toward him.

“It’s a snooper! Look, Herk; somebody’s wise to us. They have a snooper in the duct…”

“Get the stones in the box! Right away!” Herckerd ordered.

“Ah, so there was something went wrong!”

He snapped the suitcase shut, shoved it into the box on the contragravity lifter, and fastened the lid, then snapped the hook of his safety-belt onto one of the rings on the lifter. There was a crash behind him, and when he turned, Herckerd was holstering his pistol. Then he, too, snapped his safety-strap to the lifter, and pulled loose the two poles with hooked and spiked tips, passing one over and slipping the thong of the other over his wrist.

“Full lift,” he said. “Let’s go.”

He fumbled for a second or so at the switch, then turned it on. The whole thing, lifter, box, and he and Herckerd, were pulled up from the ledge and swung out into the shaft.

“What did you have to shoot for?” he demanded, pushing with his boathook-like pole. “Everybody in the place heard you.”